(GLITCHTALE) The Cry of Brass and Copper
by Nazareth Rose
Summary: A tale centering around Sans' and Dr. Gaster's relationship in Glitchtale.


It was autumn, the most unseasonably frigid autumn I had known. Of course, that was not saying a considerable amount, as my family and I had only relocated to the Surface a mere year and a half ago. The sun seemed to pierce the trees and into this father's heart. The wind blustered through my soul, penetrating it all the more acutely. Having foolishly not brought a coat to this expedition, I shuddered, teeth growing number and breaths growing icier with every breath of the wind. The autumn leaves had seemed to be more than alacritous to crush themselves under the burden of my dress shoes, and the flowers swayed this way and that- the gerbera daisies which had been implanted artificially, unnaturally, the violets which seemed to flee under the trees with their purple, supplicant eyes, and the lacy remnants of the pink lady's slippers, which had seemed to, after a long- fought battle, succumb to the urges of the chilling a father, I have the incredible opportunity of witnessing the miracles and misfortunes of children… of their dreams, of their yearnings, and how they could be fueled or ruined completely.

I was with three others- Asgore, with a vigilant, attentive eye, my beloved younger son, Papyrus, who was sprinting through the woods at a haste that only a dreadfully acute mix of excitement, alarm, and above all, love. And Toriel, who, despite in a state of terror and hyperventilating possibly to the point of presyncope, was sprinting her hardest, elusive air breathing in and out of her lungs at its swiftest, in order to follow him. Why, then, would Asgore stay behind with me, if everyone else had went?

And if everyone else left that building untouched that night… why did… why did he not leave as well?

Sitting at my wooden desk with my wooden pencil with the brass trombone at my side.

Shutting my eyes, I visualize myself there daily. Every day, I wait to open them and for me to still be there. If I were still there, that meant that he would too. That would also mean that the bonds that held us together, strong and familial, would have remained.

Sitting at my wooden desk with my wooden pencil with the brass trombone at my side.

Sitting at my wooden desk with my wooden pencil with the brass trombone at my side.

Of course his trombone would be at my side. It's a jam- packed day for the three of us. For now, I'm writing official papers for the ceremony of the grand opening of the CORE tonight. I would say that I'm weary enough to sleep nearly as much as I did in college after finishing the final exams, but all of the primary enervation had passed within the first week. Now, it was a month after I had finished that work.

But one of two of my real life's effort, one of two of my prides, my epitomes, my _magnum opera,_ strode in the room. The other was getting ready to head out, putting one petite _carpus_ and five tiny _phalanges_ in one sleeve, one other and five others in the other. Save for his hat, which he faltered over with his fingers while he struggled to get it on his head, he was ready and waiting for the freezing journey ahead which would speedily change into a sweltering blaze- the blistering inferno that was a witness to my work.

The older one's eyes immediately fell to the trombone, but then he approached his brother. "Here, lemme help," he said. Swift hands worked steadily to get the cap on, and soon Papyrus, the younger one, was shrieking in glee, ready to leave.

Sitting at my wooden desk with my wooden pencil with the brass trombone at my side.

I completed the final signature, snatching the papers up in my hands. In my mind, only a few moments had passed by, but in reality, five minutes of my eager, expectant prides and joys of my life were waiting. The notecards that had been neatly arranged sat quite securely in my hands, waiting to be used. I had practiced this a dozen times before, and a part of me, too, was as ready as they are. It was the primeval part of me, the part that I did best not to let show. It was the beast inside of me that had come alive and shown its boisterous ways, and the beast that I did best to suppress back in its cage of facts and wonder.

I cautiously took hold of the trombone… the school band wasn't permitted to bring their own instruments because of the bus being too overcrowded, the seats being bursting with children, children with sparkling eyes and eager faces, the faces which I had sworn to entomb deep within my memory.

Unexpectedly, as we were leaving our home, Sans took ahold of me. I spun back to him, a slight grin on my face. "What is it?" I asked, making no efforts to hide the mischief in my voice the way he made no attempts to hide his.

He slid the trombone down further to his height with his fuzzy gloved hand, dislodging the mulberry threads from the gloves and leaving them on the trombone, its one iota of disorder in its chrome splendor which he had preserved for so many years, keeping it frequently played- of course- but also laboring with its upkeep as I would a theory, gently yet thoroughly cleansing it in lather and warm water, meticulously scrubbing the outside with the costliest trombone polish cloth that his allowance could spare him, and carefully disassembling it, piece by infinitesimal piece, softly applying soap and grease to the parts which needed them. It was a phenomenon seeing him do this over the porcelain- white tub, picking out every piece and tending to and caring for them as a mother would a slumbering babe. It was an offense, no, a sin for my graphite- laden hands to touch that trombone, that trombone that he had spent hours of care and love on, and that he did not even dare to touch without covering his hands in gloves.

But I could not deny the words of a child, a child so young as he, a child of eleven… _eleven…_

Oh, if I were to go back…

"Watch it for me, will ya, Dad?" he asked. For an instant, I was hesitant, thinking he had seen the indistinct, grey haze of smears on my hands instigated by the graphite of the wooden pencil on the wooden desk while the brass trombone was still by my side. My soiled hands were reluctant to hold so faultless an instrument with so virtuous of an instrumentalist, but his words prodded me to take hold of it. "Watch it for me, 'till I'm ready to play it again, will ya?"

"I will," I said, unhurriedly raising the trombone back up to my height so that his gloved hand was allowed to drop back to his sides. "I swear I will," I said.

An impish smile took over his face, the same one he would use when he positioned whoopee cushions inconspicuously throughout the house in the most amusing of places. "Even forever?" he ventured, the grin still there.

And, oh God, I would forever.

It was twilight by the time all the compulsory preparations had been completed for the CORE. My youngest son was being cared for by a babysitter. He had been detached from my reach with the most heart- rending cries and words of pleading. I felt, to a certain degree, that I was being forced to take myself away from him as much as he was forced to be taken away from me.

Because it was I who had bestowed life to this new CORE, I soon found myself bombarded with beaming news anchors and even, to my great alarm, Teleprompters which forced me to say whatever words they coveted from me. Over and over again, I had said my speech, relying on the notecards which had became my tickets to survival at first, but then after reciting its tedium multiple times, my fingers grew numb of the feeling of the notecards and soon the notecards vanished into the oblivion of the ersatz auditorium that they had set up outside, never to be found again.

It was twilight, and I had choked down three hours feigning, eluding, and even lying in order to keep one precious artifact, the artifact that held me and my son tight, safe. It was the trombone that was left untouched that evening, the trombone that was undetected by even one camera. It was the trombone which was left in its likewise perfect case, resting until its musician was ready to play again.

Finally, the chains and exhaust of the school- bus arrived there. Sprinting to evade still more interviewers and receive that precious cargo which was the brass and copper of the trombone, I fumbled with the top of the case before dashing out of the room as I did before, standing in front of the bus.

For a few tense moments I waited there, observing every child garlanded with either the grin of excitement or the boredom which came with the absence of the passion which drove me and my son each and every day, became the fire which prodded our feet, the life's- blood of our lungs. After a few minutes, however, the children on the bus began to grow sparse and few, and my entire body, and yes, even my mind, seized up in anxiety, wondering, pondering, fearing if my young son was not on the bus. If he was not to come out. Yet that brass trombone waiting patiently for its musician motivated me to be silent as well, to wait, to have patience for the pride and joy which was mine.

After a few moments, to my great delight, my oldest son came scrambling down the bus steps, and I slipped the near- perfect trombone to him, only spoiled by me, to him like a baton in a running- race. I then ran my own race to the podium, ready to face the audience which was comprised of either intelligentsias like myself whose eyes would widen every second with enthrallment, and, tragically, those who were forced to come here, the light being taken away from their eyes with every bit of light added to the former's. Because of my race to the podium, my cotton-white jacket was somewhat soiled, and a makeup artist in the crowd panicked as she struggled to remove every last trace of a blemish from the jacket. I was not focused on her, however, I was focused on the boy in the second row of the reserved bleachers for the band, with one near- perfect trombone and two gloved hands.

My eagerness for the meeting, and the thrill of presenting to the throngs of those who had come here, had already dissolved after I had practiced in front of my sons multiple times. Presenting in front of a crowd did not introduce much difference, other than the reactions of the crowd that went largely as I predicted. It was as if my mind were a plane, and another pilot had taken over to experience and sense everything. Meanwhile, I was one of the aircrew- detecting the minimum, doing the minimum- but never really absorbing everything.

Yet my pilot had seemed to have fallen asleep at the wheel as I overheard the name of the Ebott Middle School Band being called out. Hastily, I made my thanks to the audience and the camera crew. Barely even aware of the oversized red scissors as they snipped the massive ribbon in front of the CORE, and the blinding parade of camera flashes that followed, I strode off the stage with a spring in my step, ready to witness my musician and his near- perfect brass trombone.

That evening, the band members were called back to the bus for a sort of celebration afterwards. As the instruments could not fit, I had to take the trombone again and soil it again with hands that had touched graphite, ink, and quite possibly a number of pathogens. It was one of the many factors that one became aware of once one became a scientist.

A few minutes afterwards, the news anchors, despite warnings from those who were overseeing them, attempted to find me, but to their disappointment, I had already absconded to my home, speed walking through the sweltering, crumbling floor of the Hotlands, the damp, soft terrain of the Waterfall, and finally the frigid snow of our home. Immediately after feeling the sweet snow under my toes, I, nearly running at this point, relieved the babysitter, and held my cooing younger son in my arms, the lure of the snow gently pattering outside persuading the both of us to descend into the sweet slumber which had escaped all of us as of late.

My younger son was awoken by the sudden, startling ring of the telephone in the living room, and I was awakened by his crying. Disregarding the call and leaving it for the answering machine to take hostage of it, I rocked my younger son in my arms, my heart gradually softening to the point of tenderness as I slowly witnessed his expression change from fear and confusion to relaxation and comfort. While he did not slip back into his dream- land again, as I have spent so many nights wishing that he would do, he was quite content, and so I laid him down in his playpen to slowly explore the few brilliant wonders of the world around us.

I tiptoed my way over to the answering machine, not wanting to make my feet as _fortissimo_ as was the norm, as if my younger son were still asleep. Arthritic hands worked to guide myself to the first message on the answering machine.

"Hello," came the voice. It carried a sense, a hint, maybe a phantom of urgency, yet boredom and monotony still took over it. "This is Principal Forsyth of Ebott Mountain Middle School. If you can, please call us back as soon as possible. Your son had some disciplinary issues during the celebration today. I would like for us to meet in person."

The message ended abruptly, too abrupt for me to arrange plans in my head to meet them as I usually did in a situation as equally taxing of the mind.

Disciplinary issues? My son? Save for the times that he mistakenly omitted the homework on the back of a sheet that at first was invisible to the eye, what disciplinary issues? Other than that mistake, he had not been punished by a teacher without at least a crumb of justification on his part, not once. Immediately, I scooped up my son, interrupting him in the middle of his explorations, put on my coat once more, and set out to the Ruins.

Occupying my eyes with the amusements that my younger son provided me and the purple radiance and brilliance of the Ruins and the path that led there, my mind still remained unoccupied. _Disciplinary issues? Why?_ The question reverberated in my head like a broken record, playing over and over again. Images whipped around my head like a revolving door, imagining all the possible things that my son could have done. Could he have tripped the alarm? Could he have vandalized, leaving dripping messages bedecked across the bathroom stalls? Could he have simply celebrated too raucously, became too boisterous for the teachers to control him?

Once we had arrived there, the words arrived blank and cold from the principal, her gaze steady, unwavering, and firm, yet still carrying the same monotony that she presented in her voice. "Dr. Gaster," she said, tensing the bags underneath her eyes. "Let's not beat around the bush. I know that you're a very busy man, and you must be exhausted after the events of today," saying it as if she were talking to an inanimate object instead of a tangible person. "Your son got into a fight," she droned. The breaths stopped midway as they escaped my throat, and my brow furrowed in response. Sweat enveloped me as a caul would, and out of pure shock, and not out of politeness, I permitted her to continue. "He's in the office. He's already got a detention next Monday, as were the others involved in the fight."

The shock manifested itself as I exited the wooden chair so quickly that it made a sickening scream of distress as it ground its wooden teeth across the floor. A whimper escaped Papyrus, and the stature of the principal before me became smaller and smaller, the shadows caused from my shadow enveloping her in a chilling embrace. Despite the anger, all I could manage to say was, "I'm sorry." Stupid Dr. Gaster. Pathetic Dr. Gaster. You can't even raise a single child right. At this rate, you presumably won't raise him completely, and he'll totter and fall without you noticing or thinking to bat an eye. Stupid. Stupid.

"It won't happen again," I said, attempting to cover up the feebleness that she had, for some strange reason, not detected.

Hurriedly, I then left the room to confront my son.

When I first saw him, he was kicking the chair in front of him with all of the boyish energy still left in him, leaving a footprint from the pattern of the bottom of his dress shoes. He seemed not to notice me at first, but when his foot kicked harder, he knew something was amiss. I occupied Papyrus outside the room with a book that I found in the hallway and made my way inside the room.

All I asked was "Son?" and he flinched a little before settling back into his normal position, gaze towards the ground, attempting to avoid mine with all of his might. It was the same expression that I had seen on him, in my friends, in my coworkers, when they were attempting to hide something. And I knew that he was hiding multiple things. Sighing, I then ventured into a question that had been carefully molded in my head when I was walking from the principal's office to here, to this desolate classroom which I presumed normally contained the children in detention. Perhaps the principal thought it wise to start my oldest son's punishment now, before he assumed he could get away with any more than what he had already gotten away with. "How did it happen?".

He did not say a word, but only made an unpleasant noise- not quite a whimper, not quite an "uhhh…".

"Tell me," I said, persisting.

The unpleasant noise came again.. quieter, this time, and barely audible for me and him alike.

I then resorted to telling an age- old white lie which I only used in drastic circumstances, such as this one. It was the white lie which I knew would break through the enameled shell that he had built for himself between the time of the fight and the time that I had burst into the room. "I won't get mad."

It took a tremored sigh… not quite the unpleasant noise this time… for him to finally say something. "It wasn't my fault," he muttered. "I don't see why that stupid principal has to punish me for this." He considered kicking the chair again, but his foot stopped halfway, sagging, defeated, to the floor. "I wasn't even the one that had thrown the first punch."

At this, I listened even more closely. I knew that if I were to interrupt him, if I were to lecture him about being involved in a fight with the first place, it would scare and frustrate him into submission, make him unwilling to reveal any more details. "It was Austin and Alex, not me," he continued.

"It was while we were on the bus ride home. I guess the engine was pretty loud, because nobody could hear what they were saying- not even the bus driver. They started calling me a 'nerd'. I mean, these kids… Dad, these kids have been calling me names for the entire year."

I could tell that the last sentence had taken a substantial amount out of him, and it also took a substantial amount out of me.

He took a deep breath, regaining his thoughts. "So, on the bus, I pretty much ignored them, but they were annoying. I mean, I wanted the bus driver to let us bring our instruments _so_ bad. I wanted to play my trombone as loud as I could, just to drown out the other kids making fun of me. But then they started…." He took a deep breath once more. I made eye contact with him in order to attempt to expose the information just a little. However, I immediately regretted it upon realizing that if my gaze were to pierce him too much, he would begin to become emotional, too emotional to reveal the full story. And if either of us needed anything at this moment, it was the full story. "…They started to make fun of you."

I could feel the look of inquisition melting off of my face, replaced by a look of a little shock. However, words meant nothing. I had already told him this in our childhood when he was discouraged by those same children from undergoing an academic endeavor that he would cherish for the rest of his life. However, it took a little longer for me to recollect my thoughts as it did for him to. "Carry on," I finally said, disregarding the fact that any of the hall monitors could come stomping past Papyrus and into this chilly, dim detention room at any moment.

The words finally escaped him, although he first laid his head in his hands, the sound of his jacket muffling his voice. "They started throwing paper balls at me, and then they-"

At this point of time, I became aware of a thistle- colored mark on his cheek, underneath his eye. The blood beginning to pump more furiously now through my veins, I disregarded it, bringing my hand to the thistle- mark and gently pressing my hand against it. He responded with another unpleasant noise, even more unpleasant than the first, not quite a yell, not quite a groan. Afterwards, his head slumped into his arms, and it took a few moments for him to say the final words. "They said that whatever they did to me… wasn't even _a fourth_ of what they were going to do to you."

At this, my reaction was complicated, and more of a rationale than a feeling. Of course, I knew for a fact, for an undeniable truth, that two children couldn't possibly hurt me, the powers that I had amassed over the years would easily overpower all of them in one swift blow. However, the primal part of me… ah, yes, the part that I hid from the world, who had exposed that part too often… still acted as if a great bear with shining claws had been pounced upon it, and the blood began to pump throughout me faster now, and more furiously than ever, and my heart began beating within my chest, a drummist performing a solo within a chamber with an audience of one.

My son, however, reacted in an inverse fashion. He decided to sit up in the desk- chair that he was in, slowly lifting his head out of his arms as if lifting an enormous weight. He let his arms settle back to the position they had bene all this time, and they made a squeaking noise on the desk as they settled back to their position on his lap. His shoe, which before had been kicking the chair with the boyish energy that they had possessed after the fight, surely, after running from the two instigators. Tranquility seemed to settle over the entirety of him, from the top of his skull to the very bottoms of his _phalanxes_. However, it seemed to disregard one area, the area that I had wanted most.

It took a few moments for him to turn towards me, a pained yet determined expression on his face, as if he were pushing back a colossal eighteen- wheeler from crushing me. He had, possibly, fathomed that the weight of his tears was worth the weight of that eighteen- wheeler. The brass trombone still lay at my side, although neither him nor I seemed to acknowledge its presence. And so it waited, serene and undetected, for one of us to acknowledge its grand beauty. The brass trombone was the only witness of the detention room who remained silent as the tears began to roll down his face- first a trickle- then a stream- and then gushing as he pulled me closer to him and reclined his head against my chest, repeating the words "I'm sorry" over and over again, the same two words that I had uttered in the office, the same words that had caused me to reprimand myself over the way I was raising my own children. The front of my jacket was rapidly dampening along with my spirit. Yet my spirit, although dampening, was simultaneously melting with the childlike simplicity that I had possessed so many years ago.

He rested against my chest, telling me over and over that he was a terrible son and that he didn't deserve to have a father. Yet I, over and over again, was telling myself that fatherhood was a mistake, that child- raising was not in my line of duty, and the realm of science was the only field that I was destined to undergo. I chased the thoughts from my head, however, with every wrap of my arms around my oldest son, every squeeze, every tear that drained from his eyes.

Yet the brass trombone remained silent, waiting for its musician. And when I had dismissed my young son once he had suggested to play the near- perfect brass trombone that I had brought for him, it became silent no longer, its deep, metallic voice echoing across the detention- room, its sound ever as brilliant as its instrumentalist.

The world was his.

Ah, yes, the world was his, ever expanding, his eyes marveling at the shimmering road that was unfolding in front of him, the world that he had so very carefully fashioned for himself with years of toil, pain, and above everything else, love. The world, which had lured us all in with the unrelenting force of a hypnotist, who prevented our vision from panning out and observing the cage which had surrounded us all.

The world was his… but then the cage of betrayal had shut, and the world crashed down on top of him, the carpet snatched underneath his feet and the ground caving in from underneath him, and he fell forever, death's dark net and the finality of its embrace the only thing that awaited him at the bottom. The world was his, but he had given it to another, whose world, shortly afterwards, had caved in on him as well. His entire castle that he had painstakingly built since he was an infant had been destroyed by the waves of fear, by the bitter- tasting waves of betrayal and loss.

Loss… such a word to describe it all. Such a word to describe this cursed year which I had been condemned to dwell in. Such a word to describe the recommendation letters from friends and family for the counselors, the sympathy cards that attempted to break through the lock on the door to my room, the flowers which had been sent to decorate his room, which had been left virtually untouched, the papers still scattered on the floor, the telephone's answering machine still left unanswered after a year..

Loss… such is a word. Such is a word to describe the night terrors of him being torn to shreds which left the seemingly fearless mind of a scientist awake and abuzz at night with a scream of distress to alarm everyone else in the house. Such is a word to describe the frigid water that I had splashed across my entire face to prevent the redness, the puffiness of grief from showing. … Such is a word to describe the hate… the selfish hate that had brewed inside of me, the name _Betty_ reaching into the very nuances of my existence…

Loss… such a word to describe the power, the crazed gratification flowing to, through, and out of the far reaches of my Self, channeling every bit of rage out to the demon that had begun it. The demon with the javelin, with the smile, with the unmoved guilt which she had lavishly bathed herself in. The demon that had caused the cuts, the scrapes, the wounds which had not only pierced the body, but the mind, oh, the _mind_ …

Loss… such a word to describe the irrationality of it all, the harsh words, or even harsher, the absence of them, never forgiving myself for never forgiving my son, even though seven years had passed… loss, such a word to describe the infinity of omission…

Loss… such a word to describe the denial, the words written on paper, his name resurfacing from my hand to paper, the graphite stains of my hands still there, unwashed for weeks at a time, the name that had been written on paper before being erased again… yet the graphite trails of his name across the paper still haunting me, begging me, and finally persuading me to write his name on the paper again… such a word…

Loss- yes, such a word, such a word, such a sweet word to encompass it all…

If I were to go back, oh, if I were to go back, oh, God, if I were to go back…

"William?" a voice asked.

Cast forth from my reverie, I whipped my head around, surprised that I was in the forest. The pink- lady's slippers still lay dying across the road, the wildflowers still strewn across the meadow, waiting to be gazed upon, and the autumn leaves that were gently tossed by the wind as they hopped to and fro about the forest trail…

I looked behind me, and greeting me was Asgore's shirt… not quite the regal purple robes that had bedecked him before he had become arrested, but still the rich purple, and the kind eyes that sat atop his face.

He was one of my best friends, one that I would consider family, even. He did not judge me, did not reject my scientific works as nonsense, one who did not treat emotions as a pile of waste, or worse, a plaything, One who treated others with benevolence without expecting benevolence in return, one who greeted small ones with a knowing smile and greeted the older ones with the respect that they deserved. He did not question me staying behind, did not question the memories that my tired mind had forced me to go through. "Are you ready now?" was all he said.

I nodded and strode along the autumn trail once again, the leaves crushing themselves once more underneath my feet. However, I heard the sound of more leaves, multitudes, being crushed under the feet of another, and Asgore was walking by my side, adamant and unflagging, determined to see Loss through to the very bitter end…

We both came to a clearing with colossal boulders all around, the wood- colored monoliths glaring into the sky, the flowery pathway and the autumn leaves coming to a cease, the very sounds of the footsteps we made duplicating across the empty basin which the boulders were surrounding….

A bloodcurdling scream echoed across the cavern, and Asgore and I sprinted towards the sound of the voice, not knowing, not caring who it was, even if it was the _bete noire_ Herself. It was the voice of a child, the terrified scream of a young one. That was all that we knew. That was all that we cared about. That was all that our blood flowed for, that our hearts pumped for. It was what we were.

When we rounded a corner, we found everyone else who had ran ahead before us. Papyrus was the first one that I saw. His gaze looked into mine, the tears beginning to escape his eyes and landing on the blue-

No. Impossible. My feet stopped, my breath stopped, my heart stopped. _Impossible._

Blue shouldn't be there. It should be red, complete red, whole and utter red, and a powdered grey that is carried with the wind, dissipated, torn apart, not here, but gone. It should not be blue, perfect blue. He should not be there. He should not be in front of me, slumped in his younger brother's arms. He should not be there.

"Dad," said Papyrus. It was the one word he managed to get out. Yet it wasn't a scream, not a shout, not even a normal word that had escaped his mouth. It was barely a movement of his vocal cords, not even a whimper or a whisper, not even a ghost of a murmur.

My eyes could barely take in the sight. The bruises, the cuts, the marks of treachery that had scarred innocent bone ripped the tears from my eyes and onto the ground. Trembling, I attempted to approach him, and I dropped to my knees in the same fashion that he did. He could not be there. That could not be that same shorts, the sneakers, even the blue jacket that I had urged him to put on during the day that he left and never came back in order to fight off the bitter cold. I had looked at the weather later, and it was pleasant… too pleasant to warrant a jacket such as that. Perhaps it was not the chill of the day I was preparing for, but, as I touched his cheek with the back of my tremoring palm, the chill of death's embrace, permanent and betraying…

"He's cold as ice," I said, the words themselves trembling as they left.

With those words, I switched gears. Delving into what I had absorbed my monster health textbooks of the past, this ice that seemed to cover my son despite the jacket meant a low amount of magic. Fallen Down. The words pierced me like a scythe, the same scythe that Betty, Death Herself, wielded. Fallen Down. _No_.

"This boy's cold as ice!" I exclaim, and the others, who were paying attention to me a little, heeded my words. They knew what the cold meant. They knew what being Fallen Down meant, how serious it was. They knew it all.

They knew.

It was two tense hours of healing and experiments. But everyone knew, and knew to the fullest of extents. It was akin to oxygen going into humans. Once they were deprived of it, they never really were the same. Once it was removed from them, they slowly started to shut down, only becoming worse the more it was taken away from them. One could hope, only hope that they would stay the same. Monsters who were Fallen Down didn't wake up. They _couldn't_ wake up.

Everyone took their chances of trying to bring him to life. But they all knew that all they were doing is putting on a light show, shining an empty green light on him. He was only dying again in slow motion.

Monsters who are Fallen Down don't wake up.

The entire time, one word echoed in my head and escaped my lips. A name. A call of hope, of pleading. A call that my knowledge deemed pure nonsense. A call that in my mind, echoed across the caverns that we were standing by.

Monsters who are Fallen Down wake up.

Monsters who are Fallen Down don't wake up.

They handed him to me, my hope dwindling now to a thread, the thread and his name, echoing in my mind, being cut off. Presumably they were hoping that I would attempt to heal him, that one power in the hands of another monster would make any difference, yet their expressions seemed to sink, their look of eager stubbornness fading into hopelessness, fading into the same expression that was kept stationary on their face for eleven months. I shook as I held him closer, the sights and sounds of those around me fading with each beat of my heart. My one wish was to trade my soul for his, my one wish for him to outlive me.

Cradling him. Rocking him back and forth, the tears and gasps spilling shamelessly onto the cavern's floor. Kissing his forehead ever so slightly, as I would do in those days so long ago when he was only a baby, in those mornings before I set off to work. Gently setting him down on the ground, as if he were merely asleep. Resting my head, even more gently, on his chest, feeling the blue fabric against my face, the tears flowing freely and unashamed, the sobs escaping my chest barefaced and brazen. The words _I'm sorry_ circling like a mad carousel spinning throughout my exhausted mind, over and over.

I heard my own mind- wracking, icy weeping, but all I was aware of was a different sobbing… the metallic, throbbing sob of a trombone, waiting for its musician to awaken.

If I were to go back.

Oh, if I were to go back.

Oh, God, if I were to go back.

THE END


End file.
